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Live Letter from the Producer 6

Just wanted to throw this up on the blog as I think it is jam packed with information and news about FFXIV. Even though there is still much work to be done before the game is finished for launch, a lot of these elements talked about in the video should be available in phase 3 of beta when the NDA is lifted.

I was very happy to see the tour of Limsa Lominsa in the video, and was glad to see that the town remains mostly in tact from what I remember from 1.0. I was scared they would change the layout and flow of the town to something strange. From the video it felt like I could just take over the controls and know exactly where to go based off of memory, and kept finding myself trying to move the video around myself and then realizing it was just a recording 😛

The housing system looks amazing, and I’m wondering how large the area will end up being with the amount of players on a server all eventually going to be wanting housing. They’ve said before in interviews that personal housing won’t be available at launch, but will be implemented later, so I am wondering if what we see here is the free company housing which will be public for other players to explore and perhaps personal housing will be instanced like when we go to the inn? Not sure, but either way it looks great and the view of the surrounding landscape is amazing.

In the video I also see they hide the UI and mention it is going through an overhaul for the next phase of testing. I can’t help but be excited about this news. If you watch the alpha test videos or the last Live Letter from the Producer, you’ll see in the game play examples what the UI is currently looking like. While it does look amazing, I can’t help but think there is still more that can be done to sleek it up and give more customization, so I am looking forward to that new look.

I won’t go into too much depth on what was in the letter, because it is already there for you to see with the new subtitles. There is some mention of the fishing system and how weather patters would affect what types of results will be given. There was mention of FATE features and how other events in the game, such as finding relic weapons and the hamlet defense will be using the FATE system. There was mention of new dungeons and how chocobos will fight alongside players, the armory system, materia, PVP, and how character data will be transferred from 1.0. I suggest watching the video, and then commenting below if you’d like any more thought from me on the video. It is worth the time it takes to watch.

I really appreciate how much SE is staying true to the design and mechanics and feel of the original FFXIV while at the same time adding many more features that fans of the series are looking for. They did a re-haul of the game, but not in a way that would upset the fans and former players. Everything I’ve seen on the remake of FFXIV has been based off of keeping all the good and wonderful things of FFXIV 1.0, but then adding additional features on top of it that make sense and work well. I know there will be a lot of changes made, but there are also a lot of things staying the same that didn’t need to be changed. No other game in history has done this. My biggest fear is that the game will be “too much” if that is possible. I think i’m going to spend WAY too much time on FFXIV once it is released. I hope that is a good thing.